Most current Blue Mound residents go to their mail boxes every day to see
what came. They don’t have to go to the post office. Well, it wasn’t
always that easy. In the early days, they had to go to the mail, it didn’t
come to their homes! There was no door to door delivery. And, in most
instances, there was no post office building. In some small communities,
all of the area mail was dropped off at the local store and folks picked
it up there. I don’t know for sure when RFD (Rural Free Delivery) came to
Blue Mound, but it was likely after 1908 (see information about rural free
delivery further down in this article).

Not only did former Blue Mound residents have to go to the postmaster’s
house, or to a store, to get their mail; for many years it was only
delivered tri-weekly. Evidence shows that to be the case from 1883 until
at least 1892 or 1893 when delivery began every day. There is also
evidence that the “post office” was likely at a “store” from 1889 to 1900.
It appears that it may have been in the general store run by Grace and
Haynes (Ruben Haynes is listed as Postmaster from 1888-1890). The same
source shows that Drury N. Morris was Postmaster and listed as running a
dry goods business from 1891-1900.

So it was that in the “old days” postmasters often operated the “post
office” out of their homes or business. There wasn’t a designated building
as we have now. This was confirmed by information from several secondary
sources. For instance, in the account of the Great
Tornado of 1883 by Jim Jones which was published in the
Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune on 15 June 1983 (a hundred year
perspective) is the following,

“Three years before the tornado, Charles McAlear traded farms with his
neighbor. The old place was spared, but his new farm was devastated. He
had been watching the weather and roused his family just in time for the
nine of them to crowd into their 4 x 6 ft. cellar. Charles and a son were
barely able to hold the cellar door shut as all the buildings were swept
away. The farm wagon, implements, and the orchard disappeared. McAlear had
maintained the Blue Mound Post Office in his home. He found one unopened
envelope of stamps lodged in a tree. All the other postal business was
lost. Nearby the Burner Schoolhouse was also destroyed.”

Another account of the same tornado published in the Chillicothe Crises,
(a newspaper) on June 28, 1883 (8 days after the event) by an unknown
reporter had it this way,

“McAlear was postmaster of Blue Mound and the office was at his house;
the whole outfit is gone. He says the government is very particular about
mail locks and he made thorough search for the bags and locks, but can
find nothing of anything; all he found connected with the postoffice was
an envelope of $15 in postage stamps which he had received from the
government and had not yet opened; he found it lodged in a tree.”

The interesting part of this info is that Charles McAlear was shown to
have been appointed postmaster beginning April 30, 1884 (see listing at
the end of this article) which was almost a full year after the Great
Tornado which hit Blue Mound on June 20, 1883! Charles McAlear’s house was
just south of what later was the site of the Mount Hope Church.

“In the early days there was a post office about a mile southwest of
Blue Mound run by two of Dutch Johnson’s daughters...”.

“Dutch” Johnson was undoubtedly Lewis Johnson who was appointed postmaster
in 1871 and then again in 1878. The 1878 plat map for Livingston County
shows his property with the designation of BLUE MOUND P.O. directly under
his name. And, sure enough his property was about a mile southwest of the
epicenter of Blue Mound. Harold Maberry sent me the following information
about Lewis Johnson:

“Lewis Johnson originally settled east of Dawn when he came to
Livingston County. He later traded farms with Isom Groce (about 1 mile
southwest of Blue Mound). Isom Groce was likely the postmaster at that
time and the postmaster job was likely transferred to Lewis Johnson. Lewis
was a German immigrant and not to adept in the English language and
allowed his daughters to take care of the day to day operation of the post
office which they did until they were married. Amanda married Ben Jones in
March 1880. Mary was the last to marry and she married Lorenzo McGrady
Haynes in December 1880. However, Mary and Lorenzo (Bud) Haynes took up
residence on the Lewis Johnson farm about the time the post office went
elsewhere.

Drury Morris (Postmaster from 1890 - 1903) lived east of Blue Mound. I’m
not sure where the house was but it may be the same one John Perry lived
in.”

All of the above sources of information are considered secondary sources.
To date, the only primary sources of historical information that I have
found about the post office(s) at Blue Mound are a listing of the 13
postmasters that served the area and three post office site reports. All
of this information came from the National Archives and Records
Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC.

First the appointments.

The register of appointments from the National Archives and Records
Administration of the U. S. Postal Service reveals that a post office was
established September 8, 1843 at Blue Mound and, with intermittent
service, was discontinued March 12, 1908. There were 13 postmasters in and
near Blue Mound from 1843 until 1908 (see chronological listing at the end
of this article). In alphabetical order they were:

Burton, Columbus

Carlyle, Marvin E.

Collins, Jacob

Groce, Isom

Haynes, Reuben S.

Johnson, Lewis

Knox, Robert

Knox, Jonathan S.

Marker, William H.

McAlear, Charles

Morris, Drury N.

Reeves, Mills S.

Rockhold, Mary C.*

*Mary C. Rockhold was the only female postmaster at Blue Mound. Her
appointment was from May 1, 1885 until March 28, 1887. Mary Catharine Knox
Rockhold was born Nov 8, 1847 and died June 11, 1887. She is buried in the
Blue Mound Cemetery.

Now for the post office site reports.

Post office site reports were forms completed by the postmasters and sent
to the Postmaster General in Washington, DC, mostly in the period from
1845 until 1945. The form typically showed the location of their post
office in relation to nearby post offices as well as transportation routes
and other geographical features. Some site reports included small grid
maps of the vicinity of the office to these features.

I requested site reports from all the postmasters of Blue Mound and got
only three: William H. Marker dated April 15, 1868, Isom Groce dated
February 24, 1871, and Drury N. Morris dated December 10, 1895. The grid
maps from Marker, Groce and Morris are linked to below

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Another secondary source of information about Blue Mound post offices is
found in A Directory of Towns, Villages and Hamlets, Past and Present
of Livingston County, MO by Arthur Paul Moser, March 1981. On Page 3,
there are four separate references regarding the post office(s) at Blue
Mound as follows:

It is located in Sec. 34, Twp. 56 N, R24W

It was in the residence of Charles McAlear and was thoroughly destroyed by
the cyclone of 1883.

Blue Mound (Mound Creek) is a post office ten miles south, south east of
Utica.

It is located on Z north of the Carroll County line. Mail via Dawn;
population 45.

The first reference to a location above would put the post office about a
mile or so to the southwest of Blue Mound. I’m not sure what year this
referred to, so have no idea who the postmaster might have been. The last
reference obviously refers to sometime after 1908 - the year that all mail
service was transferred to Dawn.

There is also a Missouri Post Offices website:
http://www.mophil.org/mopo/det/BluD23Li.htm which confirms much of the
information above. This website is sponsored by the Missouri Postal
History Society. Their purpose is to gather, study, preserve and
disseminate information regarding the postal history of the state of
Missouri from the pre-territorial era to the present.

What they list for Blue Mound is: “Dates of post office operation:
1843-1848, 1868-1875, 1878-1908" which pretty much corresponds with the
other sources.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD)

I got the following information about RFD from the U.S. Postal Service’s
website.

“Long after city dwellers began to enjoy free home mail delivery, rural
Americans still had to travel to the post office--which was often located
in a country store--to pick up their mail. The local post office is a
fixture of small-town America. Many post offices also serve as unofficial
community centers, home to notice boards and neighborly chats and gossip.
Local post offices continued to serve isolated citizens as outposts of the
federal government.

When Rural Free Delivery Service began, first as an experiment in 1896 and
later as an official service in 1902, patrons looked around their homes
and farms for anything they could find to use as a mailbox. As a result,
rural letter carriers found themselves face-to-face with a hodgepodge of
homemade, semi-functional “mailboxes.” Old coal oil, syrup and food
containers were dragged out and slapped on top of poles set out along the
road. These homespun mailboxes were often the wrong size for the mail, and
rarely placed where letter carriers could easily reach them. Carriers,
opening such boxes and finding wet, sticky remnants of the original
contents inside, were naturally reluctant to entrust the box with the
family’s mail. Mail was never the only thing kept in the boxes, though.
Customers did not hesitate to leave stampless letters in their mailbox,
sometimes with loose change to cover the postage. Some carriers found eggs
and butter left as barter for postage. Local postmasters appealed to the
Post Office Department to impose certain requirements for rural mailboxes.

In 1901, after having received a fair share of complaints from rural
carriers about the large number of often unsuitable assortment of
mailboxes used by their patrons, the Post Office Department appointed a
five-man commission to examine commercial rural mailbox designs. Of the 63
mailboxes submitted for consideration, only 14 met the specifications,
which meant that patrons who wanted R.F.D. service would have to buy a box
from the selected list of manufacturers.

Postal officials had hoped that by selecting 14 companies, the consumer
would be able to pick and choose the best mailbox at the best price.
Naturally, just about every metal-manufacturing company in the country
wanted to be included and the list of selected companies grew quickly.
Companies who were not chosen began to complain about a mailbox
“monopoly.” The Post Office Department agreed that any company could
manufacture rural mailboxes, provided the boxes were made to postal
specifications. By 1903, 46 different companies were manufacturing rural
delivery mailboxes. Mailboxes that passed scrutiny are still marked
“Approved by the Postmaster General.”

Patrons were asked to keep their mailboxes “buggy high” and within easy
reach of the carriers. Today, right-hand drive vehicles ensure that
carriers can make quick mail exchanges without getting out of their cars
or driving on the wrong side of the road. To make it easier for rural
carriers to use rural mailboxes, Postmaster General Albert Burleson
approved the use of the now-familiar tunnel-shaped mailbox. It was
designed in 1915 by a Post Office engineer, Roy J. Joroleman. A signal
flag was attached to the mailbox, which the carrier raised once the mail
had been placed inside. Customers also raised the signal flag when they
placed outgoing mail in the mailbox to make sure the carrier would stop.
The signal was appreciated by all, especially on frosty or stormy days.”

Where do you “get” your mail today? I’ve gone from a mail box in Blue
Mound, Missouri to a mail box in Columbia, Missouri. The only difference
is that now I have to walk a lot further to get to it!

Postmaster Appointments to the Blue Mound Post Office
Livingston County, Missouri
Information from the U.S. Postal Service

Name

Title

Date Appointed

Mills S. Reeves

Postmaster

09/08/1843

Robert Knox

Postmaster

10/17/1845

Mills S. Reeves

Postmaster

11/25/1846

Discontinued on September 7, 1847
Reestablished on April 11, 1848 - the postmaster appointed on that
date did not serve.

Mills S. Reeves

Postmaster

06/05/1848

Discontinued on November 22, 1848

????????????? See note below from Jennifer Lynch* ?????????????

William H. Marker

Postmaster

04/30/1868

Jonathan S. Knox

Postmaster

11/10/1869

Discontinued on October7, 1871
Reestablished on April 6, 1871

Isom Groce

Postmaster

04/06/1871

Lewis Johnson

Postmaster

10/26/1871

Discontinued on December 28, 1875
Reestablished on May 24, 1878

Lewis Johnson

Postmaster

05/24/1878

Charles McAlear

Postmaster

04/30/1884

Mary C. Rockhold

Postmaster

05/01/1885

Columbus Burton

Postmaster

03/29/1887

Reuben S. Haynes

Postmaster

02/17/1888

Drury N. Morris

Postmaster

01/06/1890

Marvin E. Carlyle

Postmaster

01/12/1903

Jacob Collins

Postmaster

12/07/1904

Discontinued on March 31, 1908; mail from and to Dawn

* Source: United States Postal Service (USPS) in a letter from Jennifer
Lynch (Research Assistant, Postal History) dated May 15, 2000. She stated
in part, “ I am enclosing lists of postmasters and their appointment
dates for the Blue Mound Post Office, which appears in our records as two
separate offices**. Local records or the post office site location reports
(see enclose handout) may help clarify whether or not these offices served
the same community.”

** Unfortunately, the post office site location reports did not resolve
this question. The USPS sent copies of signed documents by William H.
Marker, Isom Groce and Drury N. Morris ( all in the period 1868 - 1890;
none in the earlier period, 1843- 1848)..